How Bad Are Your Villains?

[Cassandra]

How bad are your villains? Are they mass murders, who'll kill at the drop of a hat, or do they try and avoid harming innocents?

 

Follow up questions. What do your villains want? Are they world conquerors, or just want money? Do they go after the heroes, or try to avoid them? Is the only reason they don't kill the heroes because they want to watch them die slowly? Do they go after the heroes loved ones?

[assault]

As always, it depends on the particular villain.

 

Most of them are basically thugs and thieves. Some of these are sociopaths, and the odd psychopath, but most of them are basically in it for the cash, and the other benefits of being a superpowered criminal. You would have to really annoy them to convince them to come looking for you.

 

Some of the others are basically monsters, who either want to be left alone, are on a rampage, or have some weird alien motivation. Staying out of the way would be entirely feasible, except for all the people who would end up being killed or injured.

 

Actual masterminds, with real plots, are the rarest and most dangerous. Fortunately, most of the time they end up hiring other people, including members of my first category, to do their dirty work. This often makes thwarting their plots relatively simple.

[bluesguy]

Let me see... In the adventures I have run for my Champions group there have been:

• One low level supervillain working with a street gang doing a smash and rob. Very easy for the players. They took out the super pretty quickly and then the street gang pretty much gave up.
  
• The Wrecking Crew (a'la Marvel) who had broken into a local nuclear power plant to steal some radioactive material. These guys were very annoying for the players until they realized the trick was to keep them far away since they didn't have many ranged attacks.
  
• Two supervillain brothers who were trying to corner the local gasoline market. Gentlemen villains/robber barons.
  
• Mercenary supervillain and his merry band of men who tried to steal pirate treasure from a local museum. The supervillain was French and he had to steal a kiss from each of the female superheroes... . In fact he would have gotten away if he hadn't done that but it was in his personality. Later some of his personal mercs broke him out the prison van on the way to Stronghold.
  
• Mercenary band of female supervillains - smash and grab types. Steal lots of loot - especially armored cars. Then travel someplace and go shopping. They happened to be shopping in Mall of America here in the Twin Cities and the players were there that day.
  
• A bloodthirsty 'godling' who wants to return to full power. He had killing attacks and used them all over the place. His minions also had plenty of nasty attacks as well.
  

 

[Greywind]

As bad as they need to be.

[Old Man]

Bad in the world-conquest sense, but not in the world-destroying sense. Individual mortals who get in the way could be inadvertently squished, or possibly even threatened by a desperate baddie.

 

The villains tend to be really good at annoying the players though. Seriously I've never seen players go on a jihad like they do when you have an NPC steal their stuff. Wow.

[GoldenAge]

Wow, after decades of play I have villains of all different stripes; from costume hunters called ATOM OMEGA (http://ghentart.deviantart.com/art/AtomOmega-394573285?ga_submit_new=10%253A1376975738) who murder heroes or villains indiscriminately to the New Reich ( ) who like all evil Nazis work to install a new world order. I have city-wide criminal undergrounds and information brokers, monsters and those simply bent on mayhem.

Look here for a lot about my game and resources maybe you could use in your own:

EPIC CITY: http://www.herogames.com/forums/forum/genres/champions/75506-epic-city-campaign-art-collateral-material

[Matt Holck]

Usually, my villains are not after the hero's but have plains to change their world or build their power.

[BTolputt]

Villains for us come in all colours and flavours. You've got your run of the mill mooks-turned-villain just looking for their "big score" like the Sandman & Rhino from Spectacular Spiderman Animated. These make up just over ½ of the villains I run. They're humorous, great fodder for a beat-down, and can be as fun for the GM to play as it is for the players to fight.

 

Then you got your ruthless villains like Deathstroke, Lex Luthor, Mandarin, Magneto, etc who are more than willing to kill those opposing them but death not being their goal. They're the story-arc villains in our games. Whereas the "mooks-turned-villain" guys are simply going to beat on the player characters until they're unconscious, these guys are the ones that will work to find out & exploit a PC's advantages. Got a dependent girlfriend or mother - these guys are going to find that out and make use of the fact. Secret identity? They're going to try exposing it. Powerless without your focus / armour / whatever? They're going to be the ones that catch you without them. They'll kill you if they have to and without too much concern over getting away with it. They're probably about â…“ of the villains I run

 

Then there is the occasional psycho killer. The Joker, Carnage, & Sin City's Kevin are examples of this rare treat/fright for the players. They aren't motivated by understandable urges like the previous villains. It's easy to understand and work with folks motivated by greed and power. I use these guys are the scary villains you don't understand (and don't want to). They're evil incarnate and killing isn't a means to an end - it's the end itself.

[death tribble]

It all depends on the villain and the hero he faces. Some are Masterminds who won't kill; some are psychotics who will indiscriminately slaughter until stopped; some are robbers like GRAB who are in it for the fun and won't kill; and there are those who might kill a hero but won;t kill civilians.

[phoenix240]

They are all across the board from misunderstood/misguided individuals with good intentions to utter socio/psychopaths with most falling somewhere in the middle.

[Enforcer84]

All of the Above.

Though I'm not one for front page gore. I have plenty of villains who are murderers. I have more who are thieves. A few who want to rule the world for its own good.

Some who are just evil, murder is the least of their worries.